


Stronger Together

by silveryink



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Magical Soulmarks, No Slash Between Brothers, Platonic Soulmates, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15953483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: Thor's mark on the back of his neck looked like the English letter 'S' formed by two entwined snakes. For some reason, it also glowed.Forks of lightning covered most of Loki's back. It looked a lot like the real thing, though it made no sense to him.Asgard is destroyed, and Thanos is after the Infinity Stones. The bond shared between the two brothers may be the universe's - and Asgard's - salvation.





	Stronger Together

**Author's Note:**

> Please DO NOT tag this as Thor/Loki, to me they are brothers and, in this fic, platonic soulmates  
> Thanks!

Thor had the glowing mark on the back of his neck all his life. His mother had described it to him often, even drawn it out or helped him see it in the mirror. It looked like the English letter ‘S’ made of two entwined snakes. Thor loved the mark, but didn’t think of it often. It had sparked his love for the reptilian creatures. When he had grown his hair out, it had covered the mark completely, like his collars had done before.

Loki’s mark covered a majority of his neck and back. Tendrils of lightning appeared to spark like the real thing. Loki loved and hated the mark. For one thing, it was beautiful, and it reminded him of Thor. For another… it reminded him of Thor. Thor, whom he had tried to push away countless times, Thor, who he had hurt with his words and actions more times than he cared. The mark was easily covered up by his tunic.

They never told each other about the marks.

Now, Asgard was destroyed, and Thor had lost his eye, his hammer, his father, his planet, and his hair, which had been shorn off on Sakaar. Loki claimed to fare better, but Thor caught the moments when his brother thought no one looked, and let the exhaustion show in the way his shoulders drooped.

All the while, Loki kept up an impeccable illusion of healthiness.

Thor had only really found out by accident – he’d clapped Loki on the shoulder fondly and drawn away a hand covered in blood. He hadn’t confronted Loki about it, because everything was backwards with Loki.

The door to Loki’s room was warded, but Thor needed to ask him about the ship’s supplies. The warding wasn’t odd – Thor would have been more surprised if he _hadn’t_ warded the door – but the lack of response when Thor pounded the door was. Normally his brother would at least chastise him and tell him to go away.

Thor was about to call again, which was when the screaming started. The god of thunder stood rooted to the spot, before he steeled himself and threw his shoulder against the warded door. It surprisingly gave way – Loki’s enchantment must have broken somehow. When Thor caught sight of his brother, he understood how.

Loki’s limbs were held in place by blue tendrils that reminded him too much of the Tesseract (but that couldn’t be, the Tesseract had been destroyed along with the rest of Asgard), and occasionally they sparked across him. Loki’s back arched as he screamed and tried to pull away from the blue tendrils. Thor crossed the length of the room in three large strides and, not knowing what else to do, placed a gentle hand on Loki’s shoulder.

Loki screamed again, and Thor felt a band tighten around his chest, to see his brother in so much pain. Tears streamed from his brother’s eyes, which were open but unseeing, and his lips were constantly moving, casting a protective charm around himself. Thor saw the greenish-gold light that was Loki’s _seidr_ reach the tendrils and stop, slowly turning blue and vanishing.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever was going on was also turning Loki’s _seidr_ against him. Loki screamed once more, and Thor’s grip on his shoulder tightened. Warmth seemed to flow through him and the blue tendrils slowly faded away.

Loki stopped writhing and sank back into the bed, drawing in ragged breaths as the pain receded. He opened his eyes, and Thor was struck as he always was by the intensity of their colour, and also the raw fear and agony that shone in his eyes.

“Thor?” Loki rasped.

“I’m here,” Thor said, and Loki pulled him into a hug before he could say anything else. Thor was startled at first, since Loki normally preferred verbal reassurances of affection to embraces, but held him firmly as Loki clutched the leather of his armour tightly and shuddered from relief and terror. Thor realised with some horror that Loki was _crying_.

The last time Loki had cried in Thor’s presence (not counting the drama that had unfolded some six years ago in the Observatory) had been when they were three hundred, when Thor had been declared missing for three weeks. Thor had returned, mostly fine, and found himself in a tight embrace with his brother, who was sobbing into his armour in relief, not caring that they had an audience.

Thor didn’t know how long the two of them stayed in the same position, but when Loki stopped sobbing, he gently lowered his brother back onto the bed. He stood and pulled up a chair next to his brother, who was watching his every move. In a few minutes, Loki was half sitting up, supported by at least three pillows (where in the Nine had he _found_ them, Thor wondered, as he pulled them out of the storage cupboard), with a blanket covering him up to his waist.

Thor reached out for his brother’s hand, surprised to find it already outstretched. When he took the proffered hand, Loki closed his eyes for a moment and relaxed. A minute of silence passed, before Loki spoke.

“I assume you’ll want an explanation?”

“You know that I do.”

Loki nodded, and, in a low voice, told him of what had transpired in the Sanctuary, how physical torture, repeated telepathic attacks and the Mind Stone had shattered his mind and his defences, leaving him vulnerable to the Mad Titan. Loki didn’t say his name, but Thor knew who he was talking about. They had studied about the Titan, who wished to kill half the universe to please his Lady Death.

Thor interrupted or a moment to ask why Thanos would want to court Hela, when Loki told him that Hela was only the goddess of death, not the embodiment of death itself. Lady Death was an entirely different being, who they certainly would not want to meet, he assured Thor. However, the Tesseract that he had bound under layers and layers of his _seidr_ interrupted the explanation with another attack.

Loki screamed again, doubling over in agony. It was only the feeling of Thor’s hand in his own that somehow kept his mind from falling to pieces. He had often wondered how he had remained sane after his ordeal on the Sanctuary. Perhaps this was why. The memories of his brother, who had always been there with him, no matter what he did.

Thor was a reassuring constant in his life, and Loki drew himself back to reality with the thought. Thor had always been there, a fixed point. There was no Loki without his brother. As one would say, they were two sides of a coin. The thought warmed him, and he used it to wrench himself free of the Tesseract’s influence.

Thor waited patiently till his brother was well enough to speak. “You’re telling me that the Mad Titan himself has been controlling you?”

Loki nodded weakly. Thor’s expression darkened, and Loki squeezed his hand with a confused frown. Thor noticed the expression and calmed slightly, squeezing Loki’s hand back in response. “He tortured, manipulated and nearly killed you. Give me a reason to not seek him out and slay him where he stands.”

“For one,” Loki said softly, hoarsely, “he tortured, manipulated and nearly killed me. He is insanely powerful, Thor. Do not put your life on the line for me.”

“You’re my brother, Loki,” Thor said tiredly. “I would put my life on the line a thousand times for you. But even I know that I shouldn’t seek out the Titan.”

“Only a thousand times?” Loki teased, before his expression grew somber. “You shouldn’t bother about exacting revenge. Stark already slew the entire Chitauri fleet. That was technically revenge.”

“You know, I didn’t call the team ‘The Revengers’ for nothing. I’m sure Bruce and Brunnhilde would exact revenge for you if you asked.”

“There’s no need for it now. You should be staying by my bedside, weeping dramatically and telling me how glad you are that I am alive.”

Thor frowned. _That I am alive?_ “Loki,” Thor asked carefully, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Loki sighed, seeming to deflate. “The Tesseract – I brought it here. It’s been trying to get past my spells all this time. I thought the doors were properly warded, so you wouldn’t be able to hear. I know, you’re wondering why I brought it back. When I was in the Vault, looking for Surtur’s crown, all I could hear was the Tesseract calling for me.

“I thought that four years on Asgard would be sufficient to break any hold Th-” Loki choked on the name and shuddered for a minute before continuing, “that the Titan had over me. Asgard had such vast libraries, after all. I wasn’t _just_ watching theatre all day long. That was simply a treat for myself, for breaking all the enchantments he had placed on me.

“It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I thought I _did_ break free. You saw me on Sakaar: much as I hated the place, I was also free from his influence there. But even then, I was looking over my shoulder. I still had to be careful. And then, you came, and I was back on Asgard, and all I could hear was _him_ , telling me – ordering me to take the Tesseract.”

“Oh, Loki,” Thor murmured. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this alone.”

Loki’s eyes filled with tears, though they didn’t fall. “The thing is, I didn’t. I tried to distance myself, to not harm you, and you kept coming back to me. In a way, I think that is what kept bringing _me_ back. Even if I don’t deserve it, I am grateful.”

“I don’t care if you deserve it or not,” Thor said. “Only that you’re my brother.”

“I’ll never understand this, but I appreciate it more than I can say.”

Thor smiled and leaned forward to kiss his brother’s brow. “Get some rest,” he instructed. “We’ll talk more later.”

Loki was asleep in minutes, and when he woke up, he found Thor resting half on him. He gently moved his free hand to Thor’s hair, resting his hand at the base of Thor’s neck. He idly ran his thumb across Thor’s knuckles, and a single thought ran over and over in his mind – even asleep and unaware of his actions, Thor hadn’t let him go.

 

The Titan arrived on the nearly empty ship a few weeks later, when Thor, Loki, Heimdall, Bruce and Brunnhilde were headed towards Earth. Loki gave up the Tesseract in exchange for his brother’s life, nearly losing his own when the Titan strangled him.

Luckily, Heimdall transported them into the New York Sanctum, and Stephen Strange, the man he’d once called a second-rate sorcerer, worked hard to save his life. His _seidr_ was almost completely directed towards mending his broken spine and neck, Stephen noticed. When he asked Thor about the lightning mark on Loki’s back, the king had only looked confused.

Stephen saw the dual snakes on the back of Thor’s neck as he treated him as well, and realised what they were. Perhaps soulmarks were not so common on other realms after all. He’d ordered Thor to go and stay close to Loki, knowing that soulmates often drew from each other’s strength and fueled each other. It hadn’t been too hard to get Thor to listen. The thunderer had practically pleaded to him.

Stephen shook his head. The two brothers had been protecting each other and strengthening each other for over a thousand years without knowing. He decided to change that, but it could wait until after the giant doughnut-like spaceship left the Earth’s atmosphere.

Thor’s presence sped up the healing to the point where Loki was mostly back to normal, apart from the bruises on his neck. Tony Stark had been brought to the Sanctum at Bruce’s insistence, and he had told them about Loki’s innocence concerning the Chitauri Invasion of New York.

The inventor didn’t appear too surprised by this, saying something about Loki’s eyes.

“Reindeer Games here has green eyes. They’re easily the most noticeable things about him,” Tony said.

“I wore an actual horned helmet,” Loki said.

“Yeah, well, horns didn’t cover up the fact that your eyes were bluer than the sky.”

“Sorry, I didn’t realise you spent a part of the battle _gazing into my eyes_.”

“Huh, that was actually funny,” Tony said with a grin. “I think I like you. The, you know, not-controlled you. But it was sunny outside, and light means you can see the features of someone’s face well.” He flushed uncomfortably when Loki raised his eyebrows. “Let’s change the topic now, this is getting awkward. Giant doughnut in the sky. How do we get rid of it?”

“Try not to provoke the Maw. Thor and I can take care of him together. Whatever you do, do not try to confront him alone. He will disarm you with telepathy first.”

“Right, and who exactly is ‘The Maw’?”

“You’ll see.”

Loki’s words proved prophetic, and when a friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man joined them to distract the alien that looked an awful lot like Lord Voldemort, well, that only helped the two brothers unleash the power of a snowstorm at the Maw. Tony, Bruce, Peter and Stephen stared in awe as the storm surrounded the two brothers without touching them. Even with the distance, and the huge swirling clouds, they could all see the entwined fingers of the two brothers.

They went to the Mind Stone next, once Loki redirected the spaceship from the Earth’s atmosphere. Last Tony had heard of the Vision, he had been staying with Wanda in Scotland. Wong stayed back to protect the Sanctum while Stephen opened a portal to Vision.

Three of the Black Order were dead by the time they left Edinburgh and Vision was taken hurriedly to Wakanda. On the flight, Steve and Tony managed to reconcile somewhat and Tony managed to explain that Loki was innocent. The king of the country welcomed them warmly, and, once they decided what to do with Vision, spoke to Thor and Loki about the situation with Asgard.

Stephen spoke to them about their marks, and it took a while to convince them to take a test to prove his theory. The results said it all – he was right. They took it well, for a pair of people who had never heard of the phenomenon before. Spider-Man, who had later introduced himself as Peter Parker, had taken a shine to Loki and Shuri.

Peter was excited to learn more, which was something Loki admired and reminded him of himself when he was younger. The Wakandan princess was much like Peter, and they were both refreshing to talk to. Shuri and Peter kept up a steady stream of chatter as she worked on Vision and separating him from the Mind Stone. Loki and Peter stood guard, while Thor waited to defend them from outside, if it came to that.

_Soulmates._ The concept was new to Loki, that there was someone meant for him, a constant figure by his side. Loki was glad that his brother was his soulmate. Peter had included a lengthy description of soulmates in his chatter, saying that they could be platonic or romantic, and that some people had more than one mark.

_Those_ concepts were familiar to Loki, who in turn told them about Asgard’s customs, his _seidr_ , his shapeshifting, and answered all their questions about these patiently. There were shouts from outside, the battle had begun. Though, it was shorter than Loki had expected, since the Avengers and the Wakandan army cut down the Outriders easily.

They were also joined by a ship piloted by a talking raccoon and a half-Celestial. Together, they were able to corner the Titan and keep the Time Stone away from him. The Mind Stone, though the Titan didn’t know it, had been destroyed just before he had arrived.

Vision retained most of his powers, such as phasing in and out of solidity, and flying, and Loki leaped out of the first-floor window into the storm that carried him straight to his brother, his _soulmate._ Together, they tempered the storm and ended the threat to the universe.

Seeing each others' soulmarks, a proof of their bond, was more satisfying than Loki would have thought. Loki felt tears blur his vision when he saw the entwines snakes, glowing a light greenish-gold. His symbol, and his colours. He knew that Thor felt much the same when he saw the lightning that spread across a major part of his back.

Asgard returned to Earth, a mere handful compared to the number of lives that had chosen to remain on Vanaheim, but the two brothers heralded an age of peace in the town they built from scratch. They ruled together, balancing each other out. Loki thought about this often, how Thanos had insisted on perfect balance in the universe. To the new town, it seemed that the brothers brought that balance with them.

“New Asgard,” Loki said, when Thor asked him to name it.

Thor laughed and the people cheered. “New Asgard it is.”


End file.
